nity in him, was
Samuel Johnson the man of men to whom he must attach himself? At the
date when Johnson was a poor rusty-coated "scholar" dwelling in
Temple-lane, and indeed throughout their whole intercourse afterwards,
were there not chancellors and prime ministers enough; graceful
gentlemen, the glass of fashion; honor-giving noblemen; dinner giving
rich men; renowned fire-eaters, swordsmen, gownsmen; Quacks and
Realities of all hues,--any one of whom bulked much larger in the
world's eye than Johnson ever did? To any one of whom, by half that
submissiveness and assiduity, our Bozzy might have recommended
himself; and sat there, the envy of surrounding lickspittles;
pocketing now solid emolument, swallowing now well-cooked viands and
wines of rich vintage; in each case, also, shone on by some glittering
reflex of Renown or Notoriety, so as to be the observed of innumerable
observers. To no one of whom, however, though otherwise a most
diligent solicitor and purveyor, did he so attach himself: such vulgar
courtierships were his paid drudgery, or leisure-amusement; the
worship of Johnson was his grand, ideal, voluntary business. Does not
the frothy-hearted yet enthusiastic man, doffing his Advocate's wig,
regularly take post, and hurry up to London, for the sake of his Sage
chiefly; as to a Feast of Tabernacles, the Sabbath of his whole year?
The plate-licker and wine-bibler dives into Bolt Court, to sip muddy
coffee with a cynical old man, and a sour-tempered blind old woman
(feeling the cups, whether they are full, with her finger) and
patiently endured contradictions without end; too happy so he may but
be allowed to listen and live. Nay, it does not appear that vulgar
vanity could ever have been much flattered by Boswell's relation to
Johnson.

Mr. Croker says Johnson was, to the last, little regarded by the great
world; from which, for a vulgar vanity, all honor, as from its
fountain, descends. Bozzy, even among Johnson's friends, and special
admirers, seems rather to have been laughed at than envied; his
officious, whisking, consequential ways, the daily reproofs and
rebuffs he underwent, could gain from the world no golden, but only
leaden, opinions. His devout Discipleship seemed nothing more than a
mean Spanielship, in the general eye. His mighty "constellation," or
sun, round whom he, as satellite, observantly gyrated, was, for the
mass of men, but a huge, ill-snuffed tallow-light, and he a weak
night-moth,